Vocational and Technical Education Journal

The study focused on enhancing school-industry collaboration for effective skill development of technical education students in Enugu State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses tested at .05 level of significance. The population for the study was 42 comprising 16 technical college teachers, 16 principals and 10 industrial based supervisors in South East Nigeria. Random sampling was used to select industrial based supervisors. Structured questionnaire containing a total of 18 items was the instrument for data collection. The instrument was faced validated by three experts and reliability coefficient of 0.89 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Mean was used to answer the research questions while ANOVA was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 levels of significance. It was found that preparing skill training programmes that will suit the school academic calendar, industry personnel participating in special lectures, narrowing the gap through periodic meeting on technological innovations were among the strategies for improving school-industry collaboration in skill development of technical education students for effective skill development in South east Nigeria. Based on the findings, recommendations were made which included: industry should understand the collaboration with school on SIWES and industry exposure to achieve quality skill development and institutions should ensure that good communication exist with the industries.

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